War of the women at the BBC

The former television newsreader Selina Scott says female bosses at the national broadcaster have betrayed older colleagues

It is the women who are to blame. Selina Scott, one of Britain’s best-known
newsreaders, believes she has finally put her finger on the reason why there
are so few female presenters over 50 on the BBC.

It has been one of television’s longest-running whodunnits since Moira Stuart,
then 57, lost her role as reader of the Sunday-morning bulletin three years
ago. Were Mark Thompson, the BBC’s director-general, and other male
executives to blame?

Scott, 58, believes she has found the answer. It is not just men but women,
too, who have betrayed her sex.

In a 14-page report, compiled in collaboration with the biggest campaign group
for the elderly, she lays into the women who form a majority both on the BBC
Trust and among the corporation’s executive directors.

Her attack comes days after Ceri Thomas, the male editor of Today on Radio 4,
was accused of sexism for